English

Inverse Temperature 4-vector in Special Relativity

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2009-11-12 v4 Astrophysics Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

There exist several prescriptions for identifying the notion of temperature in special relativity. We argue that the inverse temperature 4-vector β\bf \beta is the only viable option from the laws of thermodynamics, and β\bf \beta is a future-directed timelike 4-vector. Using a superfluidity thought experiment, one can show that β\bf \beta is not necessarily along the time direction of the comoving frame of the system, as is usually thought. It is conjectured that, for an isolated system, the 4-vector is determined from the entropy-maximum principle.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0804.3827,
  title  = {Inverse Temperature 4-vector in Special Relativity},
  author = {Zhong Chao Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.3827},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

11 pages, revised version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:34:06.343Z